Coral Calcium and The Reef

The miraculous chains of life events on coral reefs are highly complex. The basic photosynthetic organisms and plant life provide food for herbivorous (vegetarian) inhabitants such as damsel fish, parrot fish, blennies and puffer fish.

The parrot fish plays a unique role in the biomass of reefs. They use their strong teeth to chew away coral, which is ground in their digestive tract and released to form the ground-up, sandy bases of the reef. In fact, parrot fish and similar “coral munchers” are a prime source of marine coral that is harvested as coral calcium.

The reef has many species that sleep by night and play by day or vice versa. The coral reef has a fascinating bio-rhythm with an interplay of thousands of species of fish, worms, sponges, fungi and transient visitors.

The recognition of the diversity life forces to which coral is exposed makes it easier to understand how difficult it may be to define all of the nutrient benefits that may come from coral. There is a lot we do not know about the dynamics of life surrounding coral.